One Minute You're on Earth
by wavesparkle7217
Summary: One minute you're on Earth, alive. The next minute, you are dead. Then you are at a hatching on Pern, on the wrong side of Impression. Weird, no? Oh, and you remember almost nothing about being human... How would you like that?
1. One Minute, You're on Earth

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Pern, the dragons, or the characters that live in the MacCaffery's minds, but I do own mine.

**P.S. **You will probably wonder what this is doing in this category. Wait until Chapter two before giving up on it.

And so, with trembling pleasure, I present:

**One Minute You're on Earth...**

Officer Graham Kingsley flashed the lights on his black and white patrol car and steered the driver of the white Toyota over to the side of the road. Kingsley was a nice-looking young man in his late twenties, with an overgrown dirty blond buzz cut and pale blue eyes. He glanced over at his darker-complexioned parter Sal, who's slightly hooked nose and wispy black hair betrayed Italian ancestry.

"How fast was she going?" Kingsley asked Sal, referring to the reason he had pulled the car over.

"At least ten over the speed limit," Sal replied with smile. "Wanna play for it?" He asked his paler partner, sticking out his fists.

Kingsley smiled, secured the car, turning the key in the ignition to "off" and put out his hands too. The partners had a tradition involving routine traffic violations such as this. The problem was, Sal always won. The fists beat out the familiar rhythm as they smacked against the palm of their owner to the accompaniment of the silly rhyme that went with it. Sal's fingers came down in a fist, while Kingsley's came down with upper two sticking out like "scissors."

"Damn," Kingsley exclaimed. "Why do I play "rock, paper, scissors" with you, Sal?" He flipped up the visor with the picture of Sarah on her chestnut mare on it, handed the keys to Sal, and climbed out of the car. The woman in the Toyota hadn't turned off the car yet. Kingsley, felling a bit nervous, loosened his gun in his holster.

Then, he looked down as a dog latched tiny, sharp teeth into the left leg of his navy blue uniform pants. "Dammit," he muttered, "aren't dogs supposed to chase _mailmen_?" He kicked his leg a little, hoping to dislodge his unwanted visitor.

Kingsley looked back toward the patrol car at Sal's shout. Sal didn't shout unless something was really wrong.

"Look out!" Sal screamed at his partner, but it was too late to be constructive. The shocked Kingsley looked forward, saw the Toyota on top of him, and his eyes opened wide with surprise.

Then the car hit him. A bullet-proof vest isn't much help against a car. Kingsley felt his sternum cave in with a loud and sickening -

- _CRACK!! -_


	2. Next, You're on Pern

**The Next, You're on Pern**

_CRACK! -_

The shell of crisp, hard material shattered outward as the blue spasmed inside it. He felt a Mind waiting for him outside. Light flooded his sensitive many-faceted eyes and he blinked in surprise. There were three sensations tugging at him. Three holes, one in his head, the most important, one in his belly, the next to reckoned with, and one in, well, he didn't quite know. He shook his head to clear the fizz from it. He sneezed, blowing mucous from large, delicately scaled nostrils.

The navy blue dragonet, slimy with hatching fluids, flew forward, hit his nose, and rolled forward onto his back. Sprawled on the sand, he felt his mind reach out to the humans on the scalding sands. He was looking at two in particular. One was a girl named Bella, but something felt wrong about her.

_She's mine,_ hissed a voice. _I am Wraith, and Bella is MINE!_

Okay, so the blue's mind moved on. The other candidate was a boy. The blue received a flood of warm love from this mind.

_My name is Graham... th. _No, that wasn't quite right. _It's Graham... th._ Each time, the "th" added itself inexplicably in his mind speech. The little blue shook his head again and pined, _I'm hungry, K'rry_.

The dark-haired boy dressed in a white robe identical to all the other candidates smiled broadly and exclaimed, "His name is Grahamth!"

_I told you that, now my belly needs tending. NOW!!_

_All right, they said you would say that. There's food outside. Lots of it! All you can eat._ The blue's rider assured his dragon.

The blue and his rider stumbled toward the exit of the hatching ground. "I'm glad you choose me. For a moment," the rider confessed, "I thought you were headed for a girl!"

The little blue wisely said nothing. Soon enough, though it felt like ages, they had reached the buckets of meat scraps.

The blue Grahamth stuck his finely-boned head into one with zest, but pulled it out again in revulsion he could not explain.

_It's raw!_ He told his rider in disgust.

_Of course it is,_ the boy replied, unsure. _Just my luck to get the picky dragon!_ The boy teased. Grahamth shook off the feeling of disgust and helped his aching belly. The meat didn't taste bad, not that Grahamth would have noticed, the way he seemed to inhale it.

The blue was busy eating, but he still heard the Wyerlingmaster congratulate Karry on impressing the prettiest blue of the lot.

"He's as fine-boned as a green, but as big as a small brown. And that color!" Grahamth appreciated the compliments, but felt he must correct the Wyerlingmaster on his rider's name.

_My rider is K'rry, Wyerlingmaster._

"Yes, of course," the Wyerlingmaster agreed, surprised. "K'rry."

Soon enough, Grahamth was stuffed, and he was sooooo sleepy. He told his rider so. K'rry replied in a long-suffering tone that Grahamth could sleep soon, but first he must get to his bed.

They reached the stone barracks of the male wyerling's quarters, and Grahamth selected a couch almost immediately. He made sure his back did not face the door, and that he wasn't too cold. He began to fall asleep almost immediately, but the uneasy feeling was back.

_What is it, Lovey?_ K'rry asked, concerned.

_I don't know, _Grahamth replied. _Do not let it worry you, Love._ Then he drifted into the deep, dreamless sleep of hatchlings.


	3. What it Means to be Blue

**What It Is To Be Blue**

A thought formed in the groggy Grahamth's mind. _Coffee... must have coffee..._ he shook his head a little, waking up to the intense hunger eating at his stomach.

_Coffee?_ Asked K'rry far too cheerfully. _What's that?_

_I don't know, _replied the dragon. _But it must mean food. FEED ME!_ A chuckle answered the little blue.

_Come outside greedy guts. _

_YOU be this hungry and be denied food this long!_ The blue dragonet jumped off the couch onto the cold stone floor and practically galloped to the hanging meat, where K'rry was cutting gobs off for him.

_Oh! This is soooo good! _The blue praised his rider's efforts with zest as he gulped down the meat. Then he loafed his way inside to sleep off his gluttony.

Days passed in this fashion, and Grahamth slowly opened his growing mind to things more than eating, sleeping, and excreting. He had reached a point where was half-aware, his mind learning with K'rry in his lessons, and his body sleeping and growing undisturbed. It was undoubtedly the most peaceful state Grahamth found himself in.

He was listening with K'rry to a lecture on the roles of dragons when he had his first revelation. Queens were the egg-layers, the matriarchs, and the most important dragons in the Weyr. Bronzes, the next largest, were the protectors, they mated with the queens, and were leaders in Threadfall. Browns were the wing-seconds, protectors, and the most loyal. Greens were invaluable not only in keeping the male dragons satisfied, but in Threadfall as well.

_What about blues? _Grahamth asked, fearing his tenuous hold on both his world and K'rry's had failed. _What about blues?_

_He didn't mention us, Love, but we fight Thread as well._

_Is that all we are good for? _The blue asked, wantonly.

_Of course not! _K'rry assured his dragon. _We are valuable members of the weyr!_ But both knew that was an empty reassurance. Blues were the least respected dragons in the weyr.

_Why are we important? We don't seem to be. _Grahamth was feeling a little sick. _All we do is take up food. There is no Thread to fight in an interval. Ask why blue dragons matter, Beloved One._

_I will._ K'rry began to do so, but Grahamth lost his tenuous hold on his rider's world at a pull on his tail. He had been sunning himself in the sand by the lake as his mind resided with K'rry. Three green hatchlings had joined him. They were small and finely boned, with varying hues of skin, but all of them had the same flightiness about them.

The smallest, a clear emerald green with a "teacup" muzzle, stuck that lovely appendage into the air and settled a little farther away when she touched his mind and found who he was.

_Humpf. _She sounded in Grahamth's mind. This was Wraith, bonded to Bella, the first of his sisters he had met, and the only one he seemed to have alienated.

The other two, an opaque, pastel Easter green and a true summer grass green, were Bath and Myth, bonded to Raina and Aryan, respectively. They were far more typical examples of greens, being flirtatious and quick-to-forget wrongs.

Grahamth greeted his sisters with a polite _Good morning,_and they began to chatter at him.

_Gra'mth, why do you always seem to know so much?_ Bath asked, her eyes whirling the colors of contentment and curiosity. She was the less intelligent, but more curious of his new friends. Bath was daintier than the bigger, thicker-boned Myth, but not nearly so much as the tiny, beautiful Wraith.

_Yes, how do you stay with K'rry when you sleep, _Myth chimed in. _ I want to stay with Aryan too!_

_It is a task, but I have learned over the days to stay with him. I do not know if I could teach you, _Grahamth told the greens, and at their disappointed voices in his head, he sighed and shook it. _All right, what you must do first is lie as still as possible. Then find your rider's mind and try to use her senses._

As soon as this was said, Grahamth did so himself, tuning in to the next part of the lecture. He was disappointed about having missed the rest of the draconic roles, but he found the current part as interesting as his weyrmate did.

_Tithes are a kind of taxes, no? _Grahamth asked, suddenly understanding without realizing how. It was a kind of knowledge deep inside him, like his instinctual hatred of Thread, but different. _Why do the holds not like tithing? Do they not understand it is their duty?_

_They like keeping what they make. I cannot say I blame them. _K'rry sounded as if he well understood this concept. His blue found in his mind the reason why. Karry had been the son of a guardsman at Ruatha, and he knew holder minds.

_No, but... Well, they should be made to understand that we cannot survive without it!_

_Sadly, in an Interval, that is less than true. We _can_ survive without it, but if indolent tithing becomes a habit, they will not tithe when we _do_ need it. _ K'rry sounded sad at this, and Grahamth sent him a wave of love to bolster his rider's strength.

Grahamth was jolted into a realization that pulled him back into his own mind and caused his head to snap up, eyes whirling red and blue. _Blues can help the guardsmen of Pern! That can be our place!_

The young blue was swirling with excitement and distress. A picture had formed in his mind that he could not explain. He saw through eyes like K'rry's, not his own, in this picture. It was far clearer than the hazy recollections of his hatching and days of slothful growth.

_There were people in blue uniforms squatting behind the doors of black-and-white cars, holding their hands metal contraptions that could kill at a distance with no flame or swords. These people were scared, but the trill of adrenalin ran through this avatar-Grahamth with the purpose of steadying his hands and mind. He glanced beside him, and found a thin, wispy young man with hair as dark as K'rry's, but wispy and thin, not thick and wavy. He felt his lips curve into a smile, and he directed his gaze back to the front._

Grahamth, head swimming from his dream, collapsed onto the beach with an ache in his head. The voices of the three greens and the faint fear of his rider resided there with the exhausted blue. He groaned.

_What happened? What was that?_ K'rry asked frantically, giving Grahamth the sense of an interrupted class.

_Wow! You are a 'mazing story teller, Gra'mth! _Bath told him, her sister Myth adding her approval._ Wha' happ'ns nest?!_

Even Wraith seemed to be intrigued, but as Grahamth's mind touched hers, she pulled away with a tinge of fright at his being there.

Grahamth had just enough energy to reassure them all before falling deeply asleep. _THAT_ _is what blues can do._


	4. Dragons Can't be Harpers

**Dragons Can't be Harpers**

Grahamth stirred from his sleep of utter exhaustion and opened his eyes to see darkness. A shape beside him stirred, revealing itself to be K'rry. The growing blue stretched sore and itching limbs over the hard stone of his couch. K'rry must have carried him back to the barracks. Grahamth sighed. That would hardly be possible much longer. It was almost time for the dragonets to begin their swimming lessons.

Grahamth nosed the soundly sleeping rider beside him. _I itch._

_S'rry,_ the sleepy form replied, half-aware.

_Oh! I itch,_ Grahamth moaned. _I feel as if my skin is flaking away! Please, please, K'rry; oil me!_

_Ungh..._ came the protest out loud and in Grahamth's mind. _Okay! I'll oil you, Love. Just let me have some klah._

_NO! My skin is splitting in two! I'll be useless _between._ What's the point of a dragon who can't go _between_?_

"There is none," K'rry protested sorely. The young man rose from the couch and pulled on his filthy clothes from the day before. "L't's go."

The pair walked out of the barracks to the lake for the arduous but thoroughly enjoyable task of oiling. K'rry's competent hands worked and kneaded the scented oil into the blue dragons flanks. Grahamth could not suppress a groan of pleasure at the treatment, which in turn made K'rry smile.

The dragon and his rider looked up at the sound of feet passing them in the sand. It was Bella and Wraith, who had the same complaint as Grahamth.

_Morning!_ Grahamth told the green, cheerfully as K'rry would have been with klah in his bloodstream.

_Morning,_ Wraith replied, in an unexpectedly friendly tone. _That was some story-dream __you had yesterday. _

Grahamth looked back to the day before, searching through a dragon's dim recollections for the one that stood out as sharply as blazing Thread against clouds. _Oh!_ He exclaimed as he found it. _You remember that?_

_Of course I do,_ Wraith scoffed. _I remember lots more than any other dragon. _

Now a brown and his big, muscular rider had joined them at the oil pot.

_Morning,_ Wraith and Grahamth sent.

_Morning,_ came the brown's surprised thought. _How are you?_

_We're fine, _Wraith told the bigger male, Grahamth nodding his approval of the comment. _I am Wraith, and this is my friend Grahamth._

_I am Risketh,_ the brown replied, genial in his massage. _We are beginning our lessons in the lake this morning._

_Oh? _Wraith began to chat with Risketh as Grahamth listened idly, reveling in the strong touch of his rider's fingers on his skin.

Just as it was the duty of the new riders to become better riders, it was the duty of the new dragons to become better dragons. This involved forming friendships and learning about one's body. Risketh seemed like a very nice fellow, and his mind was certainly sharp enough for both Wraith and Grahamth to stay interested, but Grahamth was too busy scheming to listen.

Too soon, the oiling was over, the riders on their way to their classes with the Weyrling-master, and the old green dragon that was bonded to F'jar, the Weyrlingmaster, had trumpeted to catch the attention of her pupils.

Risketh bobbed his head to his new acquaintances, and headed over to the where the rest of the browns were gathering. Wraith was pounced on by Bath and Myth, and carried away to the green meeting place, squeaking with laughter.

Grahamth pillowed his head on his forelegs and waited to be told what the lesson was about. Just as Risketh had said, it was swimming. Their teacher, Mollitainth, waded into the water to show her pupils how to swim.

The greens and most of the blues kept to the very shallowest edges of the lake, the greens giggling madly and the blues looking slightly more dignified. The browns went to the edge of their allowed space and watched for fish. The seven bronzes and Grahamth actually tried to swim.

Tired, wet, and hungry, Grahamth returned to the shore and lay down to wait as K'rry cut him meat. Wraith, Bath, Myth and Risketh joined him as they directed their riders to cut from the same carcass as K'rry.

_K'rry,_ Grahamth began, _is it true that the holds beholden to the Weyr are not giving their best for tithe?_

_Where did you hear that, Love?_

_The bronzes told me. They heard it from Dsaierth, the queen from the next-oldest clutch. She is very important._ Grahamth _knew_ this, deep inside him.

_Yes, she is, Love. But surely she cannot be more than a gossip._

_She is a queen!_ Grahamth replied, shocked at the suggestion. _Queens do _not_ gossip._

_Her weyrwoman, Ravenna, is a gossip, and dragons are unto their riders._ K'rry pointed out solemnly.

Lithiuth, the smallest of Grahamth's bronze clutchmates, had wandered over with his rider, a tall, thin young blond called R'veem. The bronze smiled in Grahamth's mind, and began to talk, in a soft but confidant voice that betrayed a little grudging admiration for the smaller blue.

_Will you tell another picture-story?_

_I don't know if I can,_ Grahamth replied honestly. _They just kind of come._

_Oh, _the bronze replied. _I was looking forward to more._

_How did you hear-see it?_

_You kind of... broadcast it... all over. Ramoth even heard you. She said if you were not a __dragon, rather a Pernese, you might have been a harper. That is very high praise from Ramoth._

_Really? What is a harper? _Grahamth went about answering his own question by searching K'rry memories for information. He found a picture of Master Robinton and found what he did.

_I wouldn't mind being a harper. _

_Dragons cannot _be_ harpers. We are dragons. Still, next time you tell a story, please include me._ Then little Lithiuth left Grahamth and K'rry to their own devices. Grahamth would show Ramoth and Lithiuth that dragons could too be harpers.


	5. Betwixt and BETWEEN

**Betwixt and **_**Between**_

_The dawn of stars mounted on poles was brightening into reality. A siren screamed on like a scared herd beast. The avatar-Grahamth shivered a little in the dew that had begun to collect on his uniform. He paced a little faster along the sidewalk, lightstick swinging beside him, illuminating things at random. A voice crackled into being on his shoulder. _

"_Officer Kingsley, there is a domestic disturbance on 16__th__ street. You are the closest to respond."_

"_Officer will respond," the avatar-Grahamth told his shoulder, and his pace changed to a fast trot, turning toward a lighted street. "I'm just around the corner."_

"_Be careful," the shoulder-voice advised, and it was gone. The avatar-Grahamth was comfortable now that he was exerting himself. The chill of the night watch was pleasant in the summer. _

_Avatar-Grahamth turned the corner and a lighted building came into view. There were Pernese standing in front, shaking their fists and shouting. The avatar-Grahamth slowed, transferring the lightstick to his left hand, putting his right on the metal thunder-maker that hung at his hip. _

"_This is the police!" he called, directing his attention to the fighters. "Please stand apart!"_

_One turned, pulling something from its belt, and the avatar-Grahamth heard a thunderclap as blood and pain blossomed into being in the joint of his right hip. It was joined by twin points of pain in his left shoulder before he fell into unconsciousness, screaming at his shoulder-voice, "I'm hit!"_

Grahamth awoke, his wings spread, screaming mentally and physically. K'rry was at his side, stroking him, talking frantically.

"Grahamth, what is wrong? Are you okay?" Grahamth noted a tear in his rider's voice and made a effort to calm himself.

_I am alright. A bad dream is all._

Lithiuth was looking at him. _That was not a bad dream. That was not a story either._

_Then what was it, Lithiuth?_

_I don't know. _

_Then that is a _great_ deal of help._

Grahamth was much older now, and many of his friends had already gone _between_ for the first time. Today was his chance. _K'rry, we must go _between_ today. We should go to the training field to meet Mollitainth's rider._

"Yes," K'rry sighed aloud. "Yes, today we go _between_."

Rider and dragon walked out of the weyrling barracks and onto the grounds with the stiffness that comes of nerves. Grahamth crooned a little a K'rry so he would not be so tight he hurt when he mounted.

K'rry smiled a little and patted his blue's shoulder. A memory of the pain in his dream dashed across it, and Grahamth shivered.

All he had heard of _between_ did not draw it as a lovable place. It was dark, cold, and unnatural. His body tensed for flight, letting Mollitainth project the image of the star stones into his head. A part of his consciousness he had not know existed grabbed the picture and held it as a dragon holds a herd beast carcass.

The leap from the ground was exhilaration as always. The power in his haunches propelled him into the air, the sail of his wings snapping taut under the strain of the air. Soon, they were high enough to leave the world as K'rry and Grahamth knew it.

Grahamth found himself experiencing the oddest sensation. It was like floating in two places, but being in neither, as near as he could have described it later. He saw the star stones, and then he was _between_. It _was_ dark and cold. There was no air, and for a moment, Grahamth panicked. His lungs seized, his mind fogged, and he thought he was lost, but K'rry's voice was with him.

_The beeping of machines all around his bed woke him from a daze. There were people, some crying, some just standing, blank. He tried to speak, but the words caught in his throat as he tried to move his arm. Pain shot through him, dulled and indistinct as the world was, but enough to discourage movement as well as speech. The sight faded again as he sunk back into the well he come from…._

The vision was the clearest yet, and Grahamth was torn between the feeling of existing in two places again. He was frightened. They came out above the star stones, K'rry whooping.

_K'rry, I have been there before._


	6. The 80's and Pern

Grahamth was sleeping peacefully, listening to music in his head. He didn't know the music, but there it was, drumming around in his head. He felt almost like dancing. He yawned, the music fading to be replaced by immense hunger – again. K'rry was awake already, cutting meat into strips for rapidly growing blue. Grahamth was larger now than K'rry.

He had still not forgotten the dreams of harpering and finding a place for blues, but they were hazy, indistinct dreams of his egg-days, and he really had to concentrate to hold them in his thoughts for long. The music in his dreams was forgotten almost as soon as he awoke. K'rry never heard it.

For some reason, however, the music in last night's dream stayed with Grahamth. He hummed to himself as he snarfed down his meal. "_Hmm... In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind; we've gone too far..."_

K'rry was staring at Grahamth when the blue looked up, finished with his meal and ready for a good scrub and oiling.

_What was that?_ K'rry asked, in reference to the humming emanating from the dragon's mind.

Grahamth thought for a moment and then replied, wittily, _I believe it was music._

_It wasn't a Pernese song; I've never heard anything like it._

_I didn't write it, I don't think. _

K'rry frowned and glanced at the cluster of gleaming bronzes on their way to the lake. _They haven't been on you, have they? If you should like to be a harper, I don't see what's stopping you!_

_Oh! No, Lithiuth was really cool about it. But I didn't write that song... I dreamed about it. _Grahamth was a little sheepish about the whole thing. He should never have hummed that song! He didn't know where it was from, but it certainly wasn't anything he was capable of writing.

_We should talk to the wyerharper. He would know what to do with you. I _know_ they say you can't be a harper, but why? You tell such vivid stories, and you make us feel and see them like no __harper can. And now the music...._

_K'rry, I would not like to be a harper. I think, I would like to be like your father. Keep Pern safe. There is no Thread, but dragons are meant to protect, are we not?_

K'rry nodded pensively, and looked up into Grahamth's eyes. "Yes," K'rry said aloud. "Dragons are alive to keep Pern safe."

K'rry strapped the riding harness around Grahamth as Grahamth crouched down on the sand by the lake. His eyes whirled with a hint of red alarm as he watched the older dragons on the ledge. A group of blues and browns and a single bronze had gathered around a brightly shining green and their eyes whirled orange. Grahamth reached out to the ledge and felt a rush of emotions – hope, an air of intense competition, and something else that was slightly frightening. He drew his mind back and touched K'rry's.

_Why are they all on that ledge?_

K'rry looked up at the ledge where the dragons had gathered and alarm coursed through him. Grahamth opened his eyes wide, tensing his muscles for takeoff as fear demanded. K'rry reassured his dragon quickly, calming himself and suppressing whatever made him so anxious. He lead off with long strides to where the wyerlingmaster beckoned his students.

"We are going a little farther away, today," the old man told the assembled riders while his green sat high, avidly watching the wyerlings. "Mount up, and let your dragons take the visual from Mollitainth."

K'rry mounted, and Grahamth leaped into the air with a few broad strokes of his big wings. He felt K'rry's scrutiny of the other growing dragons and the feeling of immense satisfaction as he noted that Soloth, the smaller of the two browns, was only a few inches bigger than Grahamth, a lowly blue.

Grahamth felt the familiar touches of Mollitainth and Wraith in his mind, Mollitainth with a picture of high, cold mountains, and Wraith with curiosity.

Grahamth felt the picture take hold in his mind, made himself think the strange two-place way, went between, and ended up over high mountains with one of his own missing.

He wailed in despair, a keening that was joined by all the dragons of Pern as they lost one of their own. _Sesquath is gone! He is lost _between_ with his rider!_

K'rry whispered in Grahamth's mind, full of pain and loss. It was the first of that clutch to be lost, and D'ren had been his friend. The oldest of the new riders, D'ren had half-wanted to stay with the rising green, and so had not been fully engaged with the transference of himself and his dragon _between_.

As if to echo the general mood, the dark sky began to drench them with rain that turned to slick ice as it fell onto dragons and riders.

_I thought dragons did not feel the cold,_ K'rry queried bitterly as he recalled the image of their own starstones filled his mind.

_ Why do you think we sun ourselves? _Grahamth replied, as he made the effort to go between.

The wyer was so dispirited throughout the next few days that Grahamth began to hum the infectious tune of his dreams just to keep himself from falling into the same depression that gripped his wyermates.

_In my mind and in my car; we can't rewind, we've gone too far..._

_What is a car?_ K'rry asked. _We've all been wondering._

_All? _Grahamth inquired, a little shocked and embarrassed at the thought that his silly, meaningless ditty had been heard by more than himself and K'rry. _I... don't know...._

And abruptly, he was in another vision, this time of driving over a red metal bridge in the dark confines of the metal cart. _The avatar-Grahamth reached over to the center console, near where his partner's hands gripped the wheel and fiddled with a dial. Music began to resonate throughout the moving cart, the same song that Grahamth had been singing._

_"I don't know how you listen to this crap, Kingsley," the K'rry-twin said and adjusted the _ _glass in the side of the cart so cold sea air filled the inside. _

_"It's fun, Sal. This is my favorite song! '__And now we meet in an abandoned studio, we hear the playback and it seems so long ago, and you remember the jingles used to go....'"_

_"Shut up," Sal laughed and reached to where the cart's voice-box sat, idle. "I think I see a stranded motorist up ahead."_

_The cart slowed to a stop and the two Pernese climbed out. The avatar-Grahamth had his hands on his lightstick and thunder-maker at his hip. He walked over to the other cart..._

"Grahamth! Grahamth! Come back, please don't leave me!" K'rry was crying, clutching the navy hide of Grahamth's left foreleg. "Please don't leave me alone."

_I will never leave you, _the blue replied, confused. _I am always with you. You are my rider, I your dragon._

Grahamth felt Wraith's, Lithiuth's, and Risketh's mind tentatively touch his mind.

_I'm okay. I think I wrote more of that song...._


End file.
